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Friday, October 23, 2015

Vatican City, 23 October 2015 (VIS) –
Yesterday afternoon, at the beginning of the afternoon Synod
Congregation, the Holy Father made the following announcement.

“I have decided to establish a new
dicastery with competency for the Laity, Family and Life, that will
replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical
Council for the Family. The Pontifical Academy for Life will be
joined to the new dicastery.

To this end, I have constituted a
special commission that will prepare a text delineating canonically
the competences of the new dicastery. The text will be presented for
discussion by the Council of Cardinals at their next meeting in
December”.

Vatican City, 23 October 2015 (VIS) –
An appeal for mercy concluded the Czech bishop Jan Vokal's brief
reflection with which he opened the General Congregation of the Synod
of Bishops on the family this morning.

Bishop Vokal quoted the prophet Amos:
“He who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to
man what is His thought, Who makes the morning darkness, and treads
on the heights of the earth – the Lord, the God of hosts, is His
name”.

“From time to time we need to pause,
to raise our eyes to heaven, and to remember that we are not the
masters of the world and of life. We need to contemplate the sky, the
mountains, the sea; to feel the strength of the wind, the voice of
the great waters … as St. John Paul II, whose liturgical memory we
celebrated just yesterday, loved to do. We need to feel small – as
indeed we are – in the great universe that God has created and
continues to create and give life to at every instant”.

“Living increasingly among artificial
things, made by ourselves, gradually changes our perception of
reality and of ourselves. Without realising, we forget where we are
and who we are; we lose the sense of our true dimension. At times we
feel omnipotent, but we are not; at times we feel impotent, but we
are not”.

“As the prophet Amos reminds us, we
are like a blade of grass, it is true, but our heart is capable of
the infinite. We are 'almost nothing', it is true, but we can ask
'why?', and feel within ourselves a mysterious bond, at times
painful, with He Who created the world, the sun, the moon, the
stars”.

“Among all the creatures – who, in
their way, are more humble and obedient to the Creator than we are –
we humans are the only ones who recognise, and at times feel, that
this omnipotence of God's, His incomprehensible greatness, is love,
and that it is a merciful, tender, compassionate love, like that of a
mother for her small and fragile children. We are the only ones to
intuit that all of creation moans and suffers as if in the pangs of
childbirth”.

St. John Paul II left us the legacy of
his prophecy that this is the time of mercy. He gave the Second
Sunday of Easter the name of Divine Mercy, and passed away precisely
on the eve of this Sunday. May he continue to intercede for us, so
that we become ever more merciful, just as our heavenly Father is
merciful”.